Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CHILDREN (89%); CHARITIES (89%); WEALTH MANAGEMENT (89%); PERSONAL TRUSTS (89%); FAMILY (78%); ESTATE TAX (78%); FOUNDATIONS (76%); MARRIAGE (73%); TAX LAW (73%); PHILANTHROPY (70%); ETHICS (70%); BANKING & FINANCE (68%); TAXES & TAXATION (66%); HEALTH CARE COSTS (60%); HISTORY (52%)
ORGANIZATION: BOSTON COLLEGE (55%)
PERSON: PARIS HILTON (52%)
GEOGRAPHIC: BOSTON, MA, USA (79%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); SOUTH CAROLINA, USA (79%); MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: March 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: SETTING PRIORITIES: Martin Rothenberg, with his granddaughter Rachel Batizfalvi, set up charitable foundations for his children to run instead of giving them lots of money to spend on themselves.(PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

MOTIVATION: Fearing complacency, Dal LaMagna, founder of the Tweezerman company, set up trusts to provide only small incomes for his children.

TREASURES: David Wallechinsky, left, the son of the writer Irving Wallace, says his real inheritance is copies of his parents' papers.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN JOHANSSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

(PHOTOGRAPH BY LORI WASELCHUK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY RASH)

(PHOTOGRAPH BY PHILIP GREENBERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. H1)

SPARE TIME: Frank and Ruth Butler, above, at a wildlife sanctuary near their home in Topsfield, Mass., where they are volunteers. Dal LaMagna, left, in a bungalow he owns on Long Island. Martin Rothenberg, below, and his granddaughter on a run.(PHOTOGRAPHS BY NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

HEIRS: Above, Gary Williams, who owns a collection agency in South Carolina, with his wife, Peggy, and daughter, Alice Davis. Right, Amy Wallace and David Wallechinsky, the children of Irving Wallace, in their father's library.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN JOHANSSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. H5)

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The New York Times
March 18, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Pumping Iron on Two Sides of Haiti's Class Divide
BYLINE: By MARC LACEY
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Foreign Desk; PORT-AU-PRINCE JOURNAL; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 834 words
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
The grunts are no different. The clang of the weights sounds pretty much the same as well. And sweat drips off bodies at both the high-end Gold's Gym in Port-au-Prince's priciest suburb and at the far more humble open-air workout joint farther down the hill, known by regulars as the Temple of Pain.

But these two gyms might as well be in different worlds, situated as they are on opposite sides of the class divide that has long been such an entrenched part of Haiti.

''Someone at Gold's would laugh at this place,'' said Julien Spencer, 34, a burly bodybuilder who was lifting weights last week at the Temple of Pain, where the machines are made from scrap metal, car batteries and disassembled car engines, a testament to Haitian ingenuity. ''He'd take one look at what we have and walk away shaking his head. He'd say we're crazy, lifting with all this garbage while they have their fancy machines and air-conditioning.''

Mr. Spencer, who used to work as a trainer at Gold's, said he still remembered the first time he walked in there and looked around. His heart was beating fast, he said, and it had nothing to do with cardiovascular activity.

He could not believe all the luxury around him. What particularly caught his eye, he said, were all the electronic exercise machines, with lights and buttons and beepers. None of that is practical in his working-class neighborhood because the electricity goes off all the time.

''Those machines are great there, but I feel more comfortable here,'' he said at the open-air workout pit the other day. ''I like the vibe. My muscles prefer these homemade machines.''

His remarks are tinged by the fact that he was recently fired from Gold's, after he argued with the management over his salary. He also had a problem with some of the clients he encountered, not the foreigners so much as the well-heeled Haitians, who he said were used to being waited on hand and foot. When he would remind some Haitians to put the weights away after they were finished, they would sometimes react with scorn. ''They'd say, 'I'm paying you for that,' '' he said.

And although he finished fourth in a recent bodybuilding competition in Haiti, Mr. Spencer did not dare advise ornery clients on their workout technique. ''Rich people think they know more than me about everything,'' he said. ''They'll get mad if you point out that they are holding their elbows wrong.''

Technique is one thing that does not change based on the neighborhood -- even though the free weights at the Temple of Pain are made from the lead from car batteries, and people have to stand on a chrome fender salvaged from a wrecked car to reach the pull-up bar.

All around the site, which used to be a rat-infested garbage dump before Harres Desire, a local bodybuilder, cleaned it up, are bits and pieces of salvaged metal that have been forged into machines that do the work of the ones Gold's purchases at a premium from Cybex International, an American manufacturer of treadmills, steppers, cross-trainers and other exercise machines.

Gold's sells sports drinks, protein supplements and fashionable exercise outfits to its 400-plus members here in Haiti's capital. There is nothing to eat or drink at the more humble gym, where the dozen members pay about $8 monthly, about one-eighth the cost of Gold's but still out of reach for most people in the Juvenat neighborhood.

In upscale Petionville, Gold's shares space with a cappuccino shop, a clothing boutique and a wine store, the faint signs -- along with a few Domino's Pizza shops -- of the meager foreign investment in Haiti. The talk of the gym in recent months has been the fate of one of its proprietors, who was convicted last year in Florida for drug trafficking.

Although class divisions are firmly drawn here, Port-au-Prince's power lifters note that income does not matter much when it comes to muscle mass.

''You can have all the money in the world but you can't buy a body,'' Mr. Spencer said, his pockets empty but his arms overflowing from a tight-fitting shirt. ''That makes me feel good. If the rich guys could buy fitness, they would buy it. They'd leave us with nothing.''

Robert Volcy, known as Junior, a four-time Mr. Haiti who grew up in a rough downtown neighborhood but now works out at Gold's, said the class lines of Port-au-Prince meant little to him. He now lives up the hill and works there as a sports promoter, putting on bodybuilding competitions that he says he hopes will demolish the stereotype that all Haitians are scrawny.

''I started out at a little hole-in-the-wall gym,'' Mr. Volcy, 33, said, showing off biceps more ample than his questioner's thigh. ''Those humble gyms are where I started, and I still don't think they are beneath me.''

In fact, Mr. Volcy still goes back to them sometimes when he wants to get away from the networking at Gold's, where aid workers, diplomats, peacekeepers and elite entrepreneurs exercise and hobnob, and Haiti's poverty seems far, far away.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: EXERCISE & FITNESS (90%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (64%)
COMPANY: GOLD'S GYM ENTERPRISES INC (58%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: HAITI (94%)
LOAD-DATE: March 27, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Julien Spencer at the makeshift gym known as the Temple of Pain in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His machine includes truck parts.

Mr. Spencer's gym is rudimentary. Few Haitians can afford the nearby Gold's Gym.(PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

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The New York Times
March 18, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

A Cross-Country Flight That Can Cure a Bad Mood
BYLINE: By JOE SHARKEY
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ITINERARIES ON THE ROAD; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 718 words
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
THE Internet service didn't work in my room at the Sheraton Four Points hotel near the airport here. The flickering save-the-planet bathroom light made it difficult to shave, and the plastic hand-held showerhead was like something you would find at some dreary bed and breakfast.

So I was in no mood for a bad trip when I left for a 7 a.m. Virgin America flight to New York. And I didn't get one.

Virgin Atlantic, 25 percent owned by the Virgin Group, the parent of Virgin Atlantic Airways, began operations last August, flying between Los Angeles and San Francisco and New York. Virgin America plans to begin service on Tuesday from its seventh city, Seattle.

To ensure that I would have access to both first class and coach, I booked in first, for $659 one way. On Monday, the Virgin America walk-up first-class fare was $799, compared with various major airlines' walk-up fares of $3,500 for some nonstops and as low as $877 for a one-stop on that route.

The violet lighting at the airplane entrance was a careful evocation of the Virgin Atlantic experience. But the biggest surprise was the seat, which had 55 inches of legroom, compared with the typical 40 inches or less in first-class cabins on most domestic narrow-body flights. An electronic control reclined the seat and raised a leg rest, though the seat mounts make it difficult to fit a laptop underneath.

The plane, an Airbus A320 with 8 seats in first and 141 in coach, departed on time. The in-flight service was excellent, with breakfast appetizers followed by a stuffed tomato with home fries. Lunch was a sandwich wrap.

The in-seat entertainment system had live television and on-demand selections that included about three dozen movies. In coach, the seats are leather, too, and also have individual screens, though movies cost up to $7. One touch-screen feature allows coach passengers to order a snack or a drink, without having to wait for the cart. As in first class, each coach seat had access to a power port to plug in an electronic device. Wi-Fi is expected to be available in the fall.

While first class was full on my flight, coach was sparsely populated. That was especially noticeable because I can't remember the last time I was on a plane that wasn't packed full.

The flight landed on time at Kennedy International Airport, which I usually avoid. A few days later, C. David Cush, Virgin America's chief executive, told me that Virgin had planned to begin service to Newark, a much more convenient airport for me, but that federal flight caps to address congestion meant ''there is just no more room'' to add flights there this year.

Mr. Cush said that my flight, with 60 passengers, was ''anomalous'' because early Wednesday mornings in winter are slow for travel out of San Francisco. For the rest of this month, he said, Virgin transcontinental flights were about 80 percent full, roughly the industry average.

Virgin America flies to and from San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and now, Seattle. The airline will add two other cities ''east of the Mississippi'' this year, and plans to add 40 more cities in major business centers within five years, Mr. Cush said.

At Los Angeles International, Virgin has already been credited (or condemned, depending on who's talking) with starting a fare war that has also caused competitors to add flights and compete on pricing. Last week, Virgin had a sale with round-trip coach fares of about $295 between Los Angeles or San Francisco and New York.

A flashy start-up is a risky bet. Virgin, however, has ''deep pockets,'' said Mr. Cush, a former executive at American Airlines.

The airline, Mr. Cush says, is marketing heavily to what is known in the industry as the unmanaged business-travel segment, which includes small businesses and entrepreneurs who do not have access to the big corporate discounts that major airlines offer. So far, he said, overall demand for domestic air travel ''is not slackening'' despite steadily rising fares and economic anxieties.

''The silver lining is we have a very efficient fleet -- our A320s on average use 30 percent less fuel than the average for the entire U.S. fleet. We're confident that if anyone can make it, we can,'' he said.

E-mail: [e-mail]

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: AIRLINES (90%); AIRPORTS (90%); WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS (78%); AIR FARES (78%); AIR SERVICE (75%)
COMPANY: VIRGIN GROUP LTD (57%); FOUR POINTS HOTEL (58%); VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRWAYS LTD (84%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (79%); NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%) CALIFORNIA, USA (79%); NEW YORK, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (94%)
LOAD-DATE: March 18, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY CHRIS GASH)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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The New York Times
March 17, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Voting for the Worst on 'American Idol' Makes Money for an Entrepreneur
BYLINE: By BRIAN STELTER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; WORST; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 829 words
There is something about ''American Idol'' that extracts intense emotions from the audience: devotion for the contestants, perhaps, or passion for the songs. For Dave Della Terza, it elicits utter disgust. But it also turns a profit.

Frustrated by what he called the manipulative nature of the televised singing competition, Mr. Della Terza started encouraging readers of a reality television message board five years ago to vote for the contestants they deemed the worst singers.

The idea spawned a Web site, Vote for the Worst, which received widespread attention last year for supporting the singer Sanjaya Malakar as he advanced in the competition.

For Mr. Della Terza, what started as a hobby has become a business. Last year, the site had revenue of roughly $40,000, Mr. Della Terza said, mostly through Google Ads. While some of the income paid for computer servers and legal fees, the site still made a profit, allowing Mr. Della Terza to take some days off work to maintain the increasingly popular site.

Mr. Della Terza is far from the only person cashing in on the ''American Idol'' juggernaut. The publisher of the popular ''Chicken Soup for the Soul'' book series is promoting an Idol-themed edition. Walt Disney World is adding an Idol attraction to its Hollywood Studios theme park. Royal Caribbean International is embarking on Idol cruises.

But Vote for the Worst is unique, not only because it openly mocks the competition but also because it was formed spontaneously by an Internet-connected group of television viewers.

''It didn't start out as a moneymaking venture; it wasn't an attempt to leech off the 'American Idol' brand,'' Mr. Della Terza said. ''It started as a joke. But people really enjoyed it.''

The site now routinely breaks ''Idol'' news. In the first week of March, the site recorded 2.7 million page views as it reported rumors that a contestant, David Hernandez, had a background as a male stripper. Mr. Hernandez was voted off the show last week.

Mr. Della Terza said he did not expect to resemble a gossip columnist anytime soon. Still, the site has unintentionally become a font of ''Idol'' stories. Reports by Vote for the Worst in January that two ''Idol'' contestants had professional singing backgrounds subsequently became fodder for the news media. (Any person who is not under contract is eligible to audition.)

''We always post stuff on the site the producers don't want you to know,'' Mr. Della Terza said. ''We don't go out of our way to dig up dirt, but if it falls in our laps, obviously we'll post it.''

The site's fame rose last season when the radio personality Howard Stern repeatedly mentioned the site and encouraged listeners to vote to keep Mr. Malakar on the show.

In a conference call with reporters last month, Nigel Lythgoe, the executive producer of ''American Idol,'' said he did not believe online voting campaigns have any effect. ''There are too many people who vote,'' he said.

Still, Mr. Lythgoe's mention of Vote for the Worst testified to the site's significance, which still seems to surprise Mr. Della Terza, 25, an Illinois resident who works in information technology and teaches part time at a community college. A camera crew from a local television station once walked into his classroom to request an interview, he said, prompting him to conceal some details about his personal life from that point on. A volunteer now handles media requests for the site.

Mr. Della Terza started watching ''Idol'' in its second season. By season four, the worst-vote effort moved to its own Web site; in season five of ''Idol,'' the site turned a modest profit; and last year, Mr. Della Terza's site became a limited liability company to help protect its operators from any potential legal action. The show is now in it's seventh season.

The production company responsible for ''American Idol,'' FremantleMedia, has delivered three cease-and-desist letters to the site, most recently in January, accusing the site of using copyrighted content without permission. A lawyer representing the site argued that fair use covered most of the content, but the site agreed to remove the ''Idol'' logo from its pages.

The site's success has prompted Mr. Della Terza to ponder the post-''Idol'' future of the so-bad-it's-good brand.

''We have to think long term somehow and try to keep the site going,'' he said in an interview last week. Mr. Della Terza, who had a star turn on ''The Late Show With David Letterman'' last year, has batted around a television show proposal with friends, but he said laughingly that ''no one's come calling about that yet.''

For now, the site is sticking with ''Idol.'' Mr. Della Terza's efforts to elicit votes for the worst contestants on other reality shows, including ''The Next Great American Band'' and ''America's Got Talent,'' never held the same appeal.

''It's never as fun,'' Mr. Della Terza said. ''I don't think people take those shows as seriously.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: REALITY TELEVISION (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (76%); ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (76%); COMPANY PROFITS (74%); THEME PARKS (70%); NETWORK SERVERS (53%); SINGERS & MUSICIANS (89%); AMUSEMENT & THEME PARKS (70%)
COMPANY: GOOGLE INC (56%); WALT DISNEY CO (55%); ROYAL CARIBBEAN INTERNATIONAL (54%); WALT DISNEY WORLD CO (55%)
TICKER: GOOG (NASDAQ) (56%); GGEA (LSE) (56%); MCKY (LSE) (55%); DIS (NYSE) (55%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS518112 WEB SEARCH PORTALS (56%); SIC8999 SERVICES, NEC (56%); SIC7375 INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SERVICES (56%); NAICS713110 AMUSEMENT & THEME PARKS (55%); NAICS515112 RADIO STATIONS (55%); NAICS512110 MOTION PICTURE & VIDEO PRODUCTION (55%); NAICS453220 GIFT, NOVELTY & SOUVENIR STORES (55%); NAICS519130 INTERNET PUBLISHING & BROADCASTING & WEB SEARCH PORTALS (56%)
TITLE: American Idol (TV Program)>; American Idol (TV Program)>
LOAD-DATE: March 17, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Dave Della Terza started the Web site VoteForTheWorst.com, which mocks the talent offered on ''American Idol.''(PHOTOGRAPH BY SALLY RYAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Sanjaya Malakar, above, advanced on ''American Idol,'' suppported by a campaign by Vote for the Worst, which also reported that David Hernandez was once a male stripper.(PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS)

(PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANK MICELOTTA/FOX)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

967 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 17, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Sound Bite That Has Some Teeth
BYLINE: By DAVID CARR.

E-mail: [e-mail]

SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; THE MEDIA EQUATION; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1268 words
On Jan. 31, Derrick Ashong, a 32-year-old musician, dropped off his pal, Shaunelle Curry, at the Democratic primary debate taking place at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. After shrugging off her suggestion that he join her in carrying a sign for Barack Obama outside the theater -- his band was leaving on tour the next day -- he reconsidered and walked back to join her.

Carrying a sign saying ''Si, se puede!'' (Yes, we can!), he joined a throng that was milling around in the background of the live CNN shot focused on the anchor Wolf Blitzer. Then a guy named Mike carrying a video camera came walking by and began peppering Mr. Ashong with a series of skeptical and very pointed questions.

''So why are you for Obama?'' he asked. It was clear from his approach that he expected a dimwitted answer, an expectation that he was about to talk to another acolyte smitten by Senator Obama's rock star persona.

But, as it turned out, Mr. Ashong, who was raised in Ghana and elsewhere, was glad to be asked. For almost six minutes -- about a century in broadcast television years -- Mr. Ashong, who has an immigrant's love of democracy and the furrowed brow of a Brookings fellow, held forth on universal health care, single-payer approaches and public-private partnerships.

''A lot of these H.M.O.'s are publicly traded companies anyway, but I don't think we want to create a market for health care per se, like we don't want to create a futures market in health care,'' he said. And so on.

Cute stuff. Highly informative. But not the kind of political discourse that generally captures a wider audience.

But here's the weird part. On Feb. 2, the interview of Mr. Ashong was posted on a YouTube channel called ''The Latest Controversy,'' where supporters of both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Obama are asked very aggressively to justify their choice of candidates. The video blew up, drawing more than 850,000 views. And after that huge response to his policy analysis, Mr. Ashong decided to double down and explain the emotional component of his support for Obama in a follow-up video that was posted Feb. 11 and received 300,000 views.

Taken together, that means a guy who was looking to (anonymously) show a little love for a candidate was able to look into the camera for more than 13 minutes combined and draw in more than a million clicks with an impassioned but reasoned pitch.

At a time when politics and popular culture are still in an awkward mating ritual, Mr. Ashong inadvertently tapped into the youthquake that is shaking up the campaign. While the clip could have been lost among some of the popular rubble at YouTube (''Let me see, do I watch a tutorial on health care or Tori Spelling on 'Jimmy Kimmel'?''), Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic blogged about it, as did Think on These Things, a political blog. Then The Economist chimed in, which led to an editor at The New York Times hearing about it and -- well, you get the idea.

Part of what is under way has to do with a subversion of expectations. Watch broadcast news and you will see any number of man-on-the-street interviews. In this trope, a person with good hair solicits an enthusiastic sound bite from a supporter, pats her on the head and then moves on. But in this instance, neither party played by the rules. The journalist is never seen and is extremely aggressive in asking questions, while the subject, Mr. Ashong, does not so much take the bait as reel in the guy setting it out there.

''What you have here is two amateurs who are not acting like what they represent,'' said Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. ''The 'reporter' is very probing, and then the 'subject' gives as good as he gets. It is a classic viral moment.''

Since the phenomenon surfaced, some people on the Web have suggested that Mr. Ashong, with the trade dress of a hip-hop star (he is actually an M.C. who performs as D.N.A.) and the predilections of a wonk, was a plant by the Obama campaign or that the interview was a setup. But Mr. Ashong says he had never before seen or talked to Mike, the interviewer behind ''The Latest Controversy'' (a message left for Mike on his YouTube site was not answered). And Mr. Ashong said he had not been in touch with the Obama campaign before the interview and has not been since.

Not that Mr. Ashong is some sort of naif. The son of a pediatrician, he grew up in Ghana, Brooklyn, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In addition to performing with his band Soulfege, Mr. Ashong is a public speaker, an actor who had a role in ''Amistad'' and an entrepreneur who is putting together a media company called Take Back the Mic, which is an effort to use niche marketing to bring music and other media to a global market.

In a tidy bit of coincidence, his spontaneous interview on the street demonstrated the power of viral marketing in a way he is hoping to replicate with his band and his company.

''It's weird, because right when this happened, our song was named Billboard's hip-hop song of 2007, but this was so much bigger,'' Mr. Ashong said by phone from Costa Rica, where he is speaking at a conference.

''Certain types of discourse are better suited to the Web,'' he said. ''There has been so much talk about how this campaign is all about style and no substance, and this video contradicts that. There are reasons that we support Obama, and it has to do with the issues. You can't get that on CNN right now, you can't get that on MSNBC right now, and young people saw it on YouTube and they took it.''

Mr. Ashong followed up his sidewalk bulletin to the world with a direct address to the camera, an impassioned seven-minute soliloquy about democracy that would not be out of place in the ''John Adams'' miniseries unfurling on HBO.

''I have a lot of friends who were born and raised here who take what we have for granted,'' he said by phone. ''Immigrants who come here fall in love with the concepts and principles this country was founded on, even if America does not always live up to them.''

David Burstein, 19, who made a documentary about the current youth engagement in the political process called ''18 in '08,'' said Mr. Ashong's popularity is a vivid reminder that young audiences show up to this election with a different set of needs.

''Now that the campaigns are getting into this back and forth, young people are tuning out all the sniping,'' he said. ''They want meat and potatoes, and that's why TV ads have not played as much of a role in this election. They want to see their peers, people who are not part of the punditocracy, talking about what this election means to them. I don't think the interest in this video is all that surprising.''

Peter Levine, director of Circle, which promotes civic engagement among young people, said a friend of his who is a state legislator was quite taken by the video. ''She had an emotional interest in Obama, but she watched it all the way through and took some notes on the issues so she has some talking points to back it up.''

Speaking of subverting expectations, three of the dozen most popular videos on YouTube this month are about Barack Obama, not Paris or Lindsay or Britney. Many long-held beliefs are taking a beating during this election, chief among them the idea that if you want to connect with young people, you'd best keep it short, funny and stupid.

Mr. Ashong, with an audience of more than a million so far, thinks he knows what made the difference for him. ''My ears, Ihave really cute ears,'' he said.

They do stick out a bit, along with the space that lies between them.